By: Melissa Hurtado
Reporter
There is a group gaining national attention for causing trouble: “Karens”. These people will ask for the manager over small inconveniences, often anti-maskers, or rude. Ultimately, Karen is not just a meme, it’s a social problem for the following reasons: entitlement, jeopardizing people of color, and a bad influence on the younger generation.
To begin, Karens are a social issue for using their entitlement to get their way. According to Dictionary.com, “Karen is a pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people’s behavior.” Karens childish performances often emerge in customer service interactions.
When a customer behaves like a Karen, employees abide to the golden rule of service: the customer is always right. Various online videos show Karens treating employees with disrespect with often no repercussions for their actions. Businesses need to normalize refusing service to people behaving like Karens to discourage a sense of entitlement.
Furthermore, Karens often jeopardize people of color. In the case of ‘Central Park Karen’ garnering national spotlight involving black birdwatcher, Christian Cooper, and park-goer, Amy Cooper. To summarize, Christan Cooper recorded while asking Amy Cooper to leash her dog because of park regulations, and she called authorities on false accusations. If Christan Cooper hadn’t recorded Amy Cooper’s behavior, would police have believed Amy or Christan? Most Karens need to face consequences for creating false accusations on people of color.
In addition, Karens may directly/indirectly teach prejudice mentalities to the future generation. “Children can adopt the prejudicial attitudes of their families and friends,” stated Laura A. King, author of Experience Psychology, “before they even meet a person.” She continues to elaborate stating, “Stereotypes can be a powerful force in developing and maintaining prejudicial attitudes.” Thus, drifting away from improving better relationships amongst groups.
Conversely, many would argue the term Karen is a racial slur to white people. Journalist L’Oréal Blackett shared in a BBC Radio Manchester Interview, “When you talk about racial slurs, there’s a lot of history that comes behind racial slurs.” Identifying Karen as a racial slur is neglecting the damage of violence and discrimination happening in communities and people. Blackett agrees continuing, “Of course people will take offence to it, but if you’re going to be offended by something, be offended by the racism that’s taken place. That’s what we need to be offended by, not the term Karen.”
Overall, Karens are a problem, but Karen is a behavior, not an attack on women, race, or age. We must remind ourselves of Martin Luther King Jr. who expressed, “People fail to get along because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because have not communicated with each other.”
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